Much at stake

Nottingham Forest manager Dougie Freedman believes it’s important for his players to ‘understand what’s at stake’ for both sides in Wednesday’s match against Rotherham.

The Reds welcome their South Yorkshire opponents to The City Ground for a match that could sway the fortunes of both sides at their respective ends of the Sky Bet Championship table.

Forest will be looking to narrow the gap between themselves and the top six, while Rotherham are desperate for points to inch themselves away from the relegation zone.

And Freedman believes his players must appreciate the Millers’ predicament if they are to beat them.

The manager told Forest Player: “We’ve got to be patient and understand what’s at stake for them as well as us.

“They’re under a little bit of pressure because they lost on Saturday, so we need to make sure we keep that on them.

“They’ll come out of the traps very quickly, as Steve Evans’ teams normally do, and they’ll make sure they play the ball in certain areas, squeeze the pitch as much as they can and play in our half.

“We need to make sure we put as much pressure on them as possible with our game plan. We have to ask them questions, and hopefully they can’t answer them.”

Freedman has been without Matty Fryatt and Dorus de Vries in recent matches.

When asked for an update on Fryatt, he said: “His Achilles is very tight and he can only play one of these two games, Rotherham or Norwich. I’m going to make a decision tomorrow on which one he’ll play for us.